Change: Killer Croc (Batman AU)
by Reptile 06
Summary: Part of the Change series. It's been 6 years since Batman last saw Waylon Jones AKA Killer Croc. He finally tracks him down to a tiny community in Louisiana...


p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgba(252, 252, 252, 0.95); clear: none !important;"3rd Person View:/p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgba(252, 252, 252, 0.95); clear: none !important;" /p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgba(252, 252, 252, 0.95); clear: none !important;" It was a relatively small community in northern Louisiana, more specifically a street of houses roughly in the shape of a cul-de-sac. Batman, however, only focused on the house at the center of the bend. It was a decent sized California style bungalow on raised brick pillars. The house itself was yellow with a slate gray pitched roof matching porch; a freshly power washed wooden fence surrounded the backyard. Using binoculars, Batman spied on the 2, soon to be 3, occupants inside. The most notable was a hulking, reptile-like man in jeans a plaid collared shirt: Waylon Jones AKA Killer Croc. He was sitting on an abnormally large coach next to young woman. She had pale olive skin large honey brown eyes. Her near-black curly hair stopped right below her chin she wore a causal brunt orange dress. Of course no one could miss the uncannily large baby bump she sported, just like no one could miss the silver band that stuck out on her ring finger like a sore thumb. A quick hack into some local databases revealed the woman to be Marie-Joie Jones, Croc's wife. Hospital records showed she was around 7 months pregnant would be admitted for a cesarean in a few more weeks./p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgba(252, 252, 252, 0.95); clear: none !important;" Croc had Marie-Joie wrapped in one arms while the other hung lazily on the back of the couch. Batman could faintly make out the sound of a TV playing a nature documentary. Marie-Joie barely paid any attention to it, focusing on knitting, what Batman assumed was, a pale green striped silver baby blanket. Her fingers moved deftly across each row of crocheted stitches, she occasionally glanced up at the TV before returning to her task. Deciding he had seen enough, Batman slid out of the magnolia tree he was perched in made his way to his concealed Bat-Plane. Once inside Batman looked up everything he could on Waylon Jones since he had disappeared 6 years ago. Nothing really stood out; he worked for a local construction firm, got his GED a few college-level certificates, started dating Marie-Joie 4 years ago, married her last year now they were expecting their fist child, something that should be an impossibility considering how Croc's condition was supposed to have rendered him infertile (hospital records show that several test were run on both Mr Mrs Jones the staff was 97% certain that the child was Croc's). If Batman had not actually seen what Killer Croc was capable of, he might have thought that Waylon Jones was just a regular guy./p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgba(252, 252, 252, 0.95); clear: none !important;" Batman could still hull him in; Killer Croc still had warrants out for his arrest in Gotham City. The dark Knight thought back to his encounter with the reformed Professor Crane how he Croc were so similar. They both were wrongly mistreated, they both turned to a life of crime committed horrendous actions... But they both seemed so happy... So... Normal. what of Croc's child? Would he or she grow up to be like dear old dad if Batman took Croc to jail? Would he just be creating future problems for Batgirl, Robin Nightwing? Batman decided that right now, he couldn't take Waylon in. He would ask Hawkgirl Hawkman to keep an eye on him, but he could arrest the former criminal right now. Before he left, Batman left a note in a tin mailbox that had em style="line-height: 1.8em; color: inherit !important; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; text-decoration-color: currentcolor !important; clear: none !important;"The Jones/em painted on in curly letters. em style="line-height: 1.8em; color: inherit !important; font-family: inherit !important; font-size: inherit !important; text-decoration-color: currentcolor !important; clear: none !important;"'You're getting one chance Croc. Don't make me take you away from your family. Keep your nose clean.'/em Instead of an actual name signed at the bottom, a small bat symbol was drawn. A symbol that meant hope when it had once meant failure pain./p  
p style="line-height: 1.8em; color: #333333; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, '.SFNSText-Regular', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Lucida Grande', Tahoma, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgba(252, 252, 252, 0.95); clear: none !important;" A few week later the Jones welcomed a baby boy into their lives. He took mostly after his mother with his pale olive skin near-black wispy hair, but he had his father's gold serpent eyes already had a row of sharp teeth coming in. When the new parents got back home, their neighbors begged to know his name (the couple had refused to disclose any potential names much to everyone's chagrin). It was Waylon who told everyone proudly, "Bruce", he said, "Bruce Francis Jones."/p 


End file.
